These are the White House approved "meals" FEMA reportedly is handing out in Puerto Rico…Vienna sausages, a Nutrigrain bar & f'n Skittles. pic.twitter.com/fyViKthg7W
— Josh Sánchez (@jnsanchez) October 12, 2017
.
If this turns out to be some Repub’s idea of a funny joke — and we’ll know if it was, because the bastids won’t be able to keep from bragging about it — then I vote we bring back that neglected correctional tool, the pillory.
***********
Apart from praying for a targeted meteor strike, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Here's Lieutenant General Russel L. Honoré slamming the federal response to Puerto Rico & their ridiculous "meals" pic.twitter.com/NzS0pXN2G7
— Josh Sánchez (@jnsanchez) October 13, 2017
Here’s a snapshot of updated recovery numbers for #HurricaneMaria in #PuertoRico. More info can be found here: https://t.co/1bwlkwKcll pic.twitter.com/Cd9PwX60GY
— FEMA (@fema) October 13, 2017
Chyron HR
100% of airports and ports open (or not, in the most technical literal sense, open)! YOU WON’T HEAR THAT ON #FAKENEWS NBC=CNN! SAD!
Baud
Prueba el arcoiris de la mierda
SWMBO
How many died after the hurricane from lack of care? How many more are at risk?
FlipYrWhig
Debris cleanup figure is “identified”? Does that mean that it’s been, you know, moved somewhere else, or not?
Mary G
Is that “blue roof” a fucking tarp?
Why yes, yes it is.
ETA: so they’ve put tarps on a whole 108 roofs and gotten permission to put 2,000 more on. Doesn’t it rain all the time there? These scumbags are so low. I think we should start a fund to resettle Puerto Ricans in Ohio, Michigan. Wisconsin and the other close state I forget and am too lazy to google again.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Practicing for your travels, I see.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I actually am trying to learn some Spanish. Got a couple of apps for that.
SiubhanDuinne
What in the everloving blue-eyed fuckety-fuck??
SiubhanDuinne
@Mary G:
Pennsylrico
Litlebritdifrnt
Remembering that I am in England now (the North West) we are getting ready for Ophelia on Monday. Kind of strange, I thought once I left the US I would never have to worry about hurricanes again. Guess I was wrong. Apparently it is going to hit Ireland first and then the North West of England. Won’t really effect us other than the fact that hubby won’t be able to go out on his beloved bike ride on Monday. Not a good idea to be riding a bike along a promenade by Morecambe Bay in 70 mile an hour winds. Hope everyone of our friends in FL TX CA and others affected by these horrible events are all okay. Love to you all.
Baud
@Litlebritdifrnt: It’ll be tough since you guys aren’t used to them.
Mary G
@Litlebritdifrnt: Miss you and your critters, hope you are enjoying being home again.
Mike in NC
@Litlebritdifrnt: Always good to hear from you. Stay dry.
FlyingToaster
I saw an article in the local rag that Massachusetts is gearing up for students transferring in from PR. It seems like a number of them are being sent to stay with stateside relatives here in the Bay State. We’ll take the kids, but I want their parents to go to: Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina. And vote.
amygdala
@SWMBO: Hospitals in Puerto Rico don’t know, except that it’s more than has been tallied.
Mike J
Time for beast mode.
cokane
pretty fuct up. only positive outcome is the hope that maybe florida will swing blue and fucking stay that way
JPL
@Litlebritdifrnt: Love to you also.
JPL
Will tomorrow be the day that Trump recognizes that over 5000 home in California were destroyed and more than thirty are dead, although that figure is suppose to rise. Or will he finally honor the soldiers that died in Niger.
amygdala
@FlyingToaster: So is Tulane. I thought it was marvelous that the Dean of Admissions made the invitation on his blog, and referenced the Tulane students hosted by other institutions after Katrina. We had several third year med students from Tulane and LSU do rotations with us. They were good students, and we were happy to help them stay on schedule. An extra semester or year of med school tuition is not something you want to have to take on.
I think Science Twitter has been trying to organize, too. Widespread power outages can mean decades of scientific work gets lost when -70 freezers fail.
Mike in NC
@JPL: I would go with “none of the above”.
dmsilev
@JPL: On the principle that everything which Trump notices he makes worse, I think it would be best if he never finds out about the California fires.
Betty Cracker
Our hurricane debris from Irma is still sitting in the yard — the trucks are eagerly awaited all over the state. There was some concern when it looked like a possibility that Maria might come our way that the debris would become projectiles. Again.
p.a.
Hmmm. Fuckers forgot the
vegetablesketchup.Duane
That skittles meal can’t be right, a one off or something.Hell, that’s a meal a 5 year-old would want, if an irresponsible adult were in charge.
Can’t they get MRE’s in there?
zhena gogolia
@JPL:
“Watch this drive.”
Davebo
@Duane: MRE’s get old after a day or two. Trust me.
dexwood
@p.a.:
Now there you go again…
Chyron HR
@Davebo:
No, they last for 50 years (in your colon).
Mike in NC
@Davebo: I had an XO who thought they should be renamed MRUs: Meals Ready to Upchuck. If nothing else they provide a lot of calories.
woodrowfan
one of my students is from PR. She’s been telling me stories she’s hearing. Grim. She has elderly family there and sometimes they manage to get a slight signal on their cell phone to call the mainland. The family in Virginia is trying to convince their relatives in PR to join them on the mainland, but PR is their home and they don’t want to leave.
Davebo
My time in Puerto Rico was fantastic and the food was a big part of it but the people I met was a bigger part. Incredible loving people. My parents also spent time in Ponce so this is just horrific.
Robert Sneddon
@Mike in NC: The old and somewhat questionable joke was “Meals Refused by Ethiopians”.
MREs and the like are field rations, calories and basic nutrients which can be eaten cold or hot and will last a long time in storage without refrigeration. The FEMA food package shown can be eaten hot or cold and has a decent shelf life. It’s got protein, calories and some basic nutrients. I’d hope the sausage can is ring-pull or they include a small military-type can opener.
sukabi
This article is horrifying.
Hal
After two years of financial difficulties I finally bought another car today! In my area not having a car meant getting up at 4:30AM to be to work by 7AM. Ride to the bus station, bus to work in the next city over, then another bus to work location and a 3 block walk. Now I get back at least an hour in the morning and maybe 2 to 3 hours in the evening. But as thrilled as I am, I went to the grocery store, came home, and plopped on the couch the rest of the day. My plan for tomorrow is to sleep in and nothing else. But I am looking forward to Monday morning for once in a long time, so that’s something. Oh, and a big, anonymous shout out to my car dealer. They really did hook me up on loan/interest rate and the sales guy was really awesome.
Lee
@Duane: that was my thought. Just fucking drop MREs everywhere. If a Marine (I’m one) can figure out how to open & eat one. I’m sure your average person in PR can as well.
Adam L Silverman
@FlyingToaster: Tulane has publicly announced they’re offering free tuition to students attending college in Puerto Rico for the academic year.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/355449-tulane-offers-tuition-free-semester-to-displaced-students-from
Adam L Silverman
@amygdala: And when they do tally the numbers they’re going to be bad. Given how wide spread the power outages were in the first week, not that they’re much better now, you can pretty much anticipate that anyone that was on a ventilator didn’t make it. And a lot of folks on dialysis didn’t either. When the number finally come in they’re going to be a brutal indictment.
Ptocopius
@Duane:
As I understand it, about 80% of the MREs FEMA brought in turned out to be spoiled. How you manage to spoil MREs is above my pay grade, but lots of people on the island are not getting food. Oh — the MREs they brought to Houston were spoiled, too. Great job, whateveryournameis.
J R in WV
Told wife about the Vienna suasages – she made quite a face. We were visiting Volcano National Park and a web friend volunteered to meet us and escort us around the park and surrounding countryside.
It was really funny, we met at the Park HQ, where I was (of course) hovering in the book section of the building, when friends from WV shouted at us – we had no idea they would be there! Then Kitty’s truck failed (battery), and we got a ride back to our B&B with our WV friends.
After several hours hiking on broken lava beside a crevice which spewed lava our friend Kitty brought out bottles of water and cans of – you guessed it – Vienna sausages! I was just glad there were crackers too.
Mrs J has never cared for Vienna Sausages, but I dove in, crackers and meat, after a couple of miles of broken lava. There was miles of crevice that spewed lava, which landed in a long ridge to the side of the crevice, where the wind carried it. It landed in piled layers of gleaming black rock.
When I told Mrs J that emergency food being handed out in Puerto Rico was Vienna Sausages and Skittles, she was disgusted both by what was being handed out and the imagined taste and consistency of the “food”. And Skittles?
Almost anything would be better. This is a humiliation of the whole nation. This is supposed to be the “Land of Plenty”, not the land of terrible canned meat tubes!
Adam L Silverman
@cokane: That’s the concern/prediction of the Republican campaign folks here in Florida. That once all is said and done the number of Puerto Ricans that will relocate to Florida, and the fact that they’re going to rightly take out their anger on Republicans, is going to be large enough to flip the state from purple to blue. I’ve even seen speculation that Scott may forego running against Nelson for the Senate because of what’s happening.
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: No, he’ll be golfing. And tweeting.
chris
Another picture of FEMA food. Should do well in the heat.//
Tuna
I want to know who packaged that crap and how much they got paid to package obvious donated goods. Betcha they got paid more per package than the value of the donated goods. I want to know if Libby is ok with their donation being distributed like this.
Ptocopius
@Hal: Glad to hear you had a good salesman. I’ve known one salesman who really sees his job as matching his customers up with what his store has that they really need (furniture, in his case, which should be a lifetime investment). Care salesmen in particular have a bad reputation.
J R in WV
So I just read about Tulane. Amazing offer to Puerto Rico and their students.
When you compare that generous offer to what our national government is doing, it made me cry. The contrast is both wonderful and horrible. Obviously Tulane’s offer is wonderful, and Trump’s production is vile. He should be ashamed, if he could only know – maybe it’s best if he can’t know that, really. Think what he might do if he understood he was completely out done by a university in NOLA. Shame is a powerful motivator…
And now I’ve seen Jorge’s photo, worse yet… OMG what can we do to end this horror!?
Millard Filmore
@Duane:
It sounds like one of those pre-packeged kid meals that you can get at the refrigerated section of your local supermarket.
Sandia Blanca
Is this an appropriate time to ask whether Betty from Dominica has ever checked in after their hurricane? We hear almost nothing about the small islands that had so much destruction.
amygdala
@Adam L Silverman: This isn’t threaded optimally–it’s best to go directly to his feed to read it all–but this sketch of a man with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, AKA Lou Gehrig’s Disease, and what his family is doing to make sure he gets the ventilatory support he needs… it’s rage-inducing.
If the reports that the Comfort doesn’t even have a dozen patients on board are true, then what the hell is going on? They have ICU beds, dialysis, ORs, advanced imaging. I understand transportation infrastructure is a mess, but if memory serves, in Haiti, patients were brought in by helicopter. That requires some clear space, but not an airstrip or anything. I also know communications are tenuous, but still. I don’t understand how this could be happening.
Corner Stone
@Adam L Silverman: Can you imagine any previous WH having such an ineffectual and cowardly staff? Even if golfing is the *only* thing he wants to do. CA is on fire with a death toll that may hit triple digits. PR is just an unfolding horror story like they have all been trapped in the Event Horizon, where IMO if we don’t see a final count of four figure death toll I will be shocked. He just single-handedly made the likelihood of a nuclear Iran more likely – and probably convinced NoKo that an arms buildup is the only outcome for survival. And straight boned like 10 states that voted for him with the ACA stuff.
And he’s going golfing.
Corner Stone
@Hal:
That’s like better than money. Nicely done.
Adam L Silverman
@amygdala: I’ll elevate it for action right now. The US Army Task Force Chief of Staff on site is my former student. Give me two minutes to send an email.
amygdala
@Adam L Silverman: Bless you, Adam. Thank you.
Adam L Silverman
@amygdala: I do not know what is going on with the Comfort. I’ve seen the reports you’re referring to. That’s it.
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s great – for that one patient. What about the rest of the 3 million Puerto Ricans?
Not to give you a hard time, thanks for anything you can do for anyone! But this is such a cluster! Trump is destroying our nation, and a third of Americans appear to believe he’s doing a great job!! OMG!!!
Aleta
@Duane: Don’t they have MREs expiring in storage (I heard years ago). Or are they tring to make deals with corporate suppliers like is done at campus food courts or music festivals food. Or waiting to choose the lowest bidder before signing a gov’t contractor. (Haliburton International Foods comes sadly to mind.)
Achrachno
@Davebo: Skittles and Vienna sausage are inedible from the get-go.
Jeffro
@JPL: he is too busy going nuts on Twitter trying to pretend that Obamacare was about to explode and kill the entire western hemisphere and that the Virginia governor‘s race is a choice between The founding fathers or letting MS 13 rape your daughters
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: You have to understand that neither the White House (Executive Office of the President), nor the rest of the government is actually fully, let alone properly staffed right now. Between Kelly cleaning house at the White House over the past couple of months, the President purposefully not filling positions on his own staff and the staffs of those working for him, and purposefully not filling positions at Federal agencies, departments, bureaus, offices, etc and not letting the people he’s actually appointed to run fill them, we don’t have a lot of Federal government. We’ve got plenty of civil servants and senior executives (or their equivalents depending on department), but those folks are not empowered to make a lot of decisions. And even when they are, they tend to be very reticent to do so despite the civil service protections in place. As a result you get the kind of results we’re getting.
And just look at the President’s senior staff. One person, Stephen Miller, has previous experience working in the Federal government on the civilian side. That’s it. A couple of the folks that McMaster has put on the National Security Staff, but they’re stove piped and not in a position to broadly effect policy. So the only person on the senior White House staff of the President with any experience is a 32 year old that hates non whites. And anyone who isn’t Christian or Jewish. So you get crap like this happen:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-stephen-miller-single-handedly-got-the-us-to-accept-fewer-refugees
Adam L Silverman
@amygdala: @J R in WV: He’ll note it when he checks his email at some point. But given that I know he’s working at least 20 hours a day as it is, I can’t say when that will be.
It is important to note/remember that what the military is actually doing in Puerto Rico is what is called Defense Support to Civilian Authorities. Meaning that LTG Buchanan isn’t really in charge. The FEMA senior leader on site is. Unfortunately this creates the same imbalance it did in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military has far, far more assets than FEMA in PR (State Department in Iraq and Afghanistan) and is far better organized to actually deliver goods and services. But it can only bring in and deploy what the civilian authorities authorize.
My guess is when the actual reality finally trickles up to someone important in DC that the response will be to throw the military under the bus in addition to the local officials in Puerto Rico.
Adam L Silverman
@J R in WV: He and I were briefly in touch in real time on Wednesday night. He knows that he and his superiors have a gigantic problem on their hands. But since they’re there to do Defense Support to Civilian Authorities they can only do what the civilian authorities will authorize them to.
rikyrah
@Hal:
YEAH!!!
Being without a car really does suck.
amygdala
@Adam L Silverman: I had staff privileges at Bethesda Naval Hospital during the first Gulf War, for some research projects I was working on there. I saw first-hand how quickly they staffed up the hospital ships and got them halfway around the world. It was impressive. And just generally, the Bethesda staff was as collegial, professional, and tough as any I ever worked with.
I just can’t see the hangup being on the military side. Hairy logistic yarn balls like this are what they do. I’ve been trying to avoid ascribing to malevolence what can be explained by incompetence, and as you point out, that may well reside on the civilian side.
sukabi
@chris: how the f^ck is that considered food?
There is absolutely zero nutritional value in that candy.
Adam L Silverman
@amygdala: The military doesn’t always get it right, and I’m not on the ground and just seeing the same thing everyone else is being reported, but I can’t imagine this isn’t being driven from the civilian leadership down.
Corner Stone
@sukabi: I just don’t know how anybody here can be complaining about it. If Skittles are good enough for BeastMode then they have to be good enough to nutritionally sustain people stranded on an island.
amygdala
@Adam L Silverman: Understood, and again, thank you. If it hits the fan, I’m sure Congress will investigate this with the same intensity they did Benghazi.
/sarcasm
geg6
@Mary G:
Pennsylvania, land of my heart. Which, actually, already has the fourth largest Puerto Rican population in the country, believe it or not.
SiubhanDuinne
@Sandia Blanca:
I have been wondering about her almost daily, for weeks now. Could a front-pager track her down via email?
rikyrah
@amygdala:
as of Friday, it had EIGHT WHOLE PATIENTS.
EIGHT.
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: at what point (#of deaths, # of days, weeks or months without potable water, or electricity, ECT.) do military leaders decide to do what they can to help instead of what they’re “authorized” to do?
In other words, when do they decide that watching citizens needlessly suffer when they can be helped, is an illegal and immoral order?
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m trying to find a comment of her’s through the dashboard to see if I can find an email address.
Adam L Silverman
@sukabi: I don’t know. There is a long tradition of operating under Unless Otherwise Directed (UNODIR) and/or better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. But I don’t know what orders they’ve been given. I don’t know what’s in the memorandum of agreement between FEMA and US Army North.
Amir Khalid
I’m not surprised that this is how the Trump administration works, but words fail me all the same.
Corner Stone
@Adam L Silverman: If you haven’t found one:
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/09/06/irma-puerto-rico-and-medicaid-block-grants/#comment-6544717
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: Thanks.
Corner Stone
I’m all about the betty’s.
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: Email away. If I hear anything back I’ll let everyone know.
Another Scott
@rikyrah: MarineLog:
75 out of the thousands (or more) of people who must be in need is unacceptable.
FEMA, the DoD, DHS, and all the rest, should be doing much, much more. The slow ramp-up of the response is infuriating. Trump Twitter comments about PR should be added to the ever-growing list of impeachment charges…
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: is there a way to find out what the agreement is?
amygdala
@Another Scott: FEMA has the ability to call up the Commissioned Corps of the US Public Health Service. They did that after Katrina. A friend who’s in the Corps spent several months on the Gulf Coast setting up temporary primary care clinics for folks with chronic medical conditions to get their medications and checkups, so that they don’t wind up needing acute care.
Adam L Silverman
@sukabi: Probably. Eventually it should be posted here:
https://www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/documents
Here’s one with US Army Corps of Engineers from back in 2008 that should give you some idea:
http://www.usace.army.mil/Portals/2/docs/MILCON/FEMA-USACE08.pdf
And here’s the manual:
https://training.fema.gov/emiweb/is/is75/student%20manual/student%20manual.pdf
Duane
@Aleta: I think Lt.General Honoré’s exasperation with the situation sums it up for all of us.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
they knew he was a scorpion all along, and yet…
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This is a bit awkward given that the Republican National Committee is paying for his and his son’s attorneys.
Sandia Blanca
@Adam L Silverman: Thank you so much, Adam. Like SiubhanDuinne, I have been checking every day to see if she has commented yet. This year has just been like a firehose out of hell–we are still reeling from catastrophes of a month ago, and new ones happen every day. Hoping for a word from Betty soon.
randy khan
I thought the Trump spawn were concerned about the possibility of getting one poisoned Skittle in a bag. Oh, wait, these are going to brown people, so I guess they don’t care.
RedDirtGirl
@Duane:
In this case the 5 year old and the irresponsible adult are the same person!
Mike in NC
We’ve had quite the interesting weekend with the tweeting Angry Fat Bastard promising to kill us all but we still have Sunday to suffer through.
Ruckus
@Mike in NC:
I work with a guy in the NG although he’s going to Jordan soon for a year. He likes MREs.
Matt McIrvin
@Adam L Silverman: Surely they can come up with some kind of convoluted ID law that will keep them from voting for a while. Something about proof of residency, perhaps.
Matt McIrvin
@randy khan: The Skittles are for self-defense. They’re deadly weapons, remember?
Steeplejack (phone)
@Adam L Silverman:
Here’s a comment from Betty on September 17, just before the hurricane hit.
ETA: I see Corner Stone already responded. Good job.
Shalimar
Very late to the thread, but I have lost power for 2 weeks before after a hurricane, during the Dubya administration. The Alabama National Guard passed out MREs and bottled water after the first 5 days or so. We got something like a week’s worth each and it was enough to last until power came back on.
Shalimar
@Davebo: I found with MREs that you pick through the stuff that actually sounds good in the first few days*, then start going through everything else as you’re forced to. In particular, the main courses go fast and all the various supplementary foods and snacks wait until you have no other options. But it is still better than the other options if you have no power and the stores and restaurants where you could buy food don’t either.
*If you have a bunch of them, and you’re really bored, I assume most people do what I did and take all the various stuff out of the individual MRE packages and sort it.
Shalimar
@Ruckus: After eating canned food cold for 5 or 6 days, I thought MREs were great too. food was ok, it was hot, and there are a lot of different little things in each one.
NotMax
Sounds as if FEMA is scooping up whatever has been sitting in warehouses collecting dust.
Next week, expired K-rations. After that, petrified hardtack.
Groucho48
Perhaps the Skittles and Vienna Sausages were donated? While I can see FEMA having a warehouse full of sausages, I don’t see them stockpiling Skittles.
I suspect the worker bees were under lots of pressure to get something, anything, out to Puerto Ricans, not because the higher ups were concerned about them, but, because they needed to pad the numbers for all their charts and presentations.
So, the worker bees just scrambled and assembled what they had.